by M. M. Kaye
The hostel was a large, tall building where they were taken up in a lift and then down a long passage, vaguely reminiscent of a hospital, to two rooms on the third floor. There were sounds of splashing from an adjoining bathroom, and Lottie’s voice and Mademoiselle’s singing ‘Malbrouck s’en va t’en guerre’.
The Melvilles’ luggage was carried into the larger bedroom, the smaller one being already strewn with toys and redolent of caraway seeds. Stella went off to talk to Lottie, and Robert turned to the German who had carried up the suitcases: ‘Where is this lady going? We need another room. A single room for the fräulein.’
The man nodded cheerfully. ‘Ja, ja. The fräulein will come with me, please.’
He led Miranda back down the passage, and after several turnings ushered her into a small room that looked down upon an open concrete space and the ruined shell of a bombed building, and departed.
Miranda pushed open the window and stood looking out at the grey sky and the falling rain, and down at the ruined walls.
So this was Berlin! It had sounded so exciting. ‘Where are you going for a holiday this year, Miranda?’ ‘I’m going to Berlin!’ ‘Berlin? My dear, what fun! Bring us back some lovely cut-glass and don’t get arrested by the Russians!’
Well, she was here; and she wished passionately that she was back again in the tiny flat near Sloane Street. Oh, how right Stella had been! Travelling in foreign countries was all very well when things went smoothly, but when everything went crazily awry, as they had last night, it was an additional horror that one was in a strange land and surrounded by unfamiliar things and people. She had not felt like this—frightened and unsure and lost—since she was a small girl wandering through terrible, ruined streets and crying for parents whom she was never to see again.
It was not only the sight of a murdered man that had brought those days back, dragging them out of that dark attic in her mind into which her conscious and subconscious mind had thrust them. She should never have come here, to this shattered city where the very language in the streets tugged at shadowy memories that were better forgotten.
CHAPTER 6
Robert had left for the barracks, and Stella, Mademoiselle and Lottie had all gone off to see the new house. There had not been room for Miranda in the Volkswagen.
‘Are you sure you don’t mind being abandoned like this?’ Stella had inquired anxiously. ‘I’d leave Mademoiselle and Lottie instead, but I know Lottie would only rampage up and down the passages with that awful Wally, and Mademoiselle may as well start making herself useful in the new house.’
‘No, of course I don’t mind,’ said Miranda untruthfully. ‘In fact I’d far rather stay quietly here and have a hot bath.’
But she did mind. She did not want to be left alone in this large, strange, impersonal building with its rabbit-warren of passages and stairways that smelt faintly of disinfectant, hot pipes and stale cooking, and its windows that looked out upon grey rain and grey, bomb-scarred buildings.
Her own luggage had still not arrived, but the Melvilles had left a cake of soap and a bath towel in the bathroom adjoining their rooms, and Miranda lay and soaked until the water cooled, and then dressed slowly. But there was still an hour and a half to fill in before the others would return for lunch.
She combed back her dark, shining waves of hair, pinning them so that they curled above her ears, and wondered if the Pages were still in the hostel—only to remember that Andy too had left for the barracks and Sally had announced her intention of taking over her new flat, which was less than five minutes’ walk away. And neither the Leslies nor the Marsons would be at the hostel, for they had driven direct to their own homes.
Miranda decided to go down to the lounge and see if there were any papers or magazines she could read.
She did not use the lift, but walked down by the stairs, and turning left at the first landing found that she had lost her way. There was no lounge or dining-room here: only a narrow hall with bedrooms leading off it. She paused, at a loss. Should she have turned to the right, or was she on the wrong floor? As she hesitated, she heard the lift come up from below and stop at the landing that she had just left. There was a subdued clash of metal as the doors slid back, and someone began to talk swiftly and urgently in German.
Once, long ago, Miranda had spoken German with a child’s fluency; but she had forgotten it, with much else, and the conversation on the landing, even if she could have heard it clearly, meant nothing to her. But the voice that spoke in an undertone barely above a whisper held an unmistakable ring of desperation that was oddly disturbing.
It was a woman speaking; a woman not far from tears, who was answered by another; a sullen voice this time, clearer and harsher. ‘Not so loud!’ begged the first voice, unexpectedly in English. There were footsteps on the stairs above the landing and Miranda heard one of the women gasp in alarm, and realizing that she herself would seem to be eavesdropping she turned and walked around the corner and back onto the landing.
A dark-haired woman, hatless and wearing a wet raincoat, was standing with her back to Miranda, and a second woman was entering the lift. The steel gates clashed together and the lift sank out of sight as the woman in the raincoat turned on her heel, and brushing past Miranda disappeared round the corner into the passage.
Miranda stood on the narrow landing and frowned into the darkness of the empty lift-shaft, thinking that she must have been mistaken. She had only caught a brief glimpse of the back of the woman who had entered the lift, but the colour and cut of the coat had been familiar, for Mrs Marson had worn a similar one during the journey to Berlin. But Mrs Marson spoke no German. She had said as much on the platform at Bad Oeynhausen, when there had been some difficulty over a porter, and Stella, whose German was halting and rusty from disuse, had had to act as interpreter.
The woman on the landing had spoken fluent German, so obviously it could not have been Mrs Marson; there were probably plenty of women in Berlin who wore dark red coats with black passementerie on the collar and cuffs, and small black hats. All the same, it was odd and unsettling, and of a piece with the strange, uneasy atmosphere of the past forty-eight hours. But it was not to be the only unexpected incident of that morning.
As Miranda reached the turn of the stairs leading down to the next floor, a man coming from the direction of the dining-room and the lounge passed quickly along the landing below her and vanished down the staircase leading to the ground floor. It was Robert. Then it must be later than she thought, and Stella would be back!
Miranda reached the lower landing and turned to her left, and this time she was on the right floor for the lounge lay before her. But the hands of the clock stated that it was barely fifteen minutes to twelve, and standing alone in the middle of the lounge, facing the door, was Sally Page.
‘Oh!’ said Sally Page on a half gasp. ‘Oh____Hullo, Miranda.’
Her flower face flushed pinkly.
‘Hullo,’ said Miranda, surprised. ‘I thought you were taking over your flat?’
‘I am—I mean I was. But it all seemed such a muddle that I thought I’d wait until Andy could give me a hand. There’s a corporal there now checking lists, and the carpets are old and dirty and hideous and none of the curtains seem to match____’ Sally’s voice was a little breathless and she appeared to be talking for the sake of filling an awkward silence—‘so I just gave it up and thought I’d come back here and see if I could get a cup of coffee or something. But as there doesn’t seem to be anyone about, I think I’d better run back. Perhaps I shouldn’t have walked out on them.’
Miranda did not attempt to dissuade her, and with a childish toss of her head and a heightened colour, Sally walked quickly out of the room.
Miranda looked after her thoughtfully. Surely Robert couldn’t be such a fool as to…? There you go again! she accused herself. Imagining things. Making mountains out of molehills like some gossiping old spinster. What if Sally has got a schoolgirl crush on Robert? A good many far more
mature women had experienced something of the same emotion when looking at him, and those same women probably cherished a sentimental admiration for some glittering and unobtainable hero of the screen, which in no way impaired their affection for their own far less spectacular husbands!
As for Robert, he had probably had some perfectly legitimate reason for making a brief return to the hostel, and there was no need to suppose that he had been keeping a sentimental assignation with Sally.
Miranda picked up a dog-eared copy of a women’s magazine and determinedly embarked on a story that turned out, maddeningly, to be the first instalment of a full-length novel.
Mademoiselle and Lottie returned at lunchtime with a message from Stella to say that she was having lunch with the Marsons, whose house was near hers, and would probably return for tea. And a few minutes later Robert rang up to say that he was lunching at the Mess; adding that they would be moving into the house next morning.
Miranda’s luggage was delivered at the hostel after lunch and carried up to her room with the assistance of Mademoiselle and Lottie. Mademoiselle’s offer to stay and help unpack being refused, she swept Lottie off to rest, and Miranda was left alone.
Whoever had examined the contents of her suitcases had repacked them with incredible neatness but a complete disregard for the cut of feminine clothes. Even her rolled underwear had been folded into small squares the size of a man’s handkerchief. Miranda removed only what she would need for the night and left the suitcases on the floor.
The thin drizzle of the morning had turned to a steady rain that drummed on the window ledge and spattered up against the panes. But except for the sound of the rain, the room and the rambling building and the wet afternoon seemed very quiet.
A hinge creaked faintly in the silence, and reflected in the dressing-table mirror Miranda saw the door behind her opening very softly, an inch at a time, as though a draught swung it slowly inwards.
Something moved in the widening gap—a face. A hideous, idiot face of white and scarlet blotches with a wide grinning mouth. And for a brief moment Miranda’s heart seemed to jerk in her breast and her breath stopped. The next moment she had swung round and leapt at the door.
The head dodged back and its owner fled down the passage with Miranda in pursuit.
The small figure darted round the turn of the passage, and Miranda, rounding it a split second later, crashed full tilt into someone coming from the opposite direction; and for the second time in less than twelve hours found herself in the arms of Simon Lang.
‘Oh!’ gasped Miranda furiously, tears of fright and rage in her voice: ‘Now look what you’ve done! I’d have caught that little horror if it hadn’t been for you!’
‘What little horror? The small boy who just streaked past me?’
‘Wally Wilkin! I’d like to murder that child!’
Her voice broke on a sob; and then a sudden realization of what she had said, and to whom she had said it, struck her like a slap in the face, and she jerked herself away from Simon Lang’s supporting arm, her white face flushing scarlet. ‘And that doesn’t mean I murdered the Brigadier last night, so you needn’t look at me like that!’ she said, her voice unnaturally high and unsteady.
‘Take it easy,’ advised Simon Lang mildly. ‘What’s the matter? You seem a bit upset.’
‘So would you be if that sort of thing came peering round a corner at you!’ She gestured to where a brightly coloured cardboard mask, cut from the carton of a well-known brand of breakfast cereal, lay on the floor.
Simon Lang’s lips twitched and Miranda said tremulously: ‘You needn’t laugh! It scared me.’
‘I can see it did. And I’m not laughing. You’re feeling pretty jumpy, aren’t you? Is it that business of last night, or is it something else?’
‘I don’t know.’ Miranda’s anger had suddenly evaporated and she felt tired and bewildered. ‘Partly last night, I suppose. But it’s not only that. I just wish I’d never come to Berlin. I thought it was going to be such fun, but it’s been hateful instead. Hateful and frightening. What are you doing here?’ she finished abruptly.
‘I wanted to talk to you. Has your luggage arrived all right?’
‘Yes, thank you. Is that all you wanted to talk about?’
‘No. Do you mind if we go along to the lounge? There isn’t anyone there just now, and I think it would be more comfortable than standing talking in the passage—and more in keeping with the conventions than using your bedroom.’
The lounge looked gloomy and inhospitable in the grey light of the wet afternoon. There was no one else there and the whole hostel appeared to be empty and deserted.
Simon Lang selected two armchairs farthest from the door and offered Miranda a cigarette. He lit it for her and she looked up from leaning down to the lighted match and met his eyes. The flame was reflected in them, turning them to an odd shade of amber and there was a curious look in them very like surprise.
Miranda sat back in her chair and said uncertainly: ‘Why do you want to see me? Who are you?’
‘The Officer Commanding 89 Section Berlin, if that means anything to you; and in the regretted absence of the D.A.P.M. Security and Intelligence Branch, who is at present incarcerated in an isolation ward with mumps, this murder is my pigeon.’
‘Oh,’ said Miranda, and was silent for a moment. ‘What do you want to talk about?’
‘About you,’ said Simon Lang amiably: ‘I’d like you to tell me again just exactly what happened last night. Try and remember everything, however trivial it may seem.’
Miranda thought for a moment. ‘I couldn’t go to sleep,’ she began …
She told the story as accurately as she could, trying to relive it exactly as it had happened, and Simon Lang listened without interruption, and when she had finished, said: ‘You say that you felt nervous and on edge the first time that you went out into the corridor, and as though you wanted to look over your shoulder. Any particular reason why you should have felt like that? Are you sure that you hadn’t heard or seen something that had frightened you?’
‘Quite sure. There wasn’t anything to be frightened of. Not then. That’s what made it all so silly. Anyway, it wasn’t just on the train. I’d been feeling a bit Aunt Hettyish all day.’
‘A bit who?’
Miranda flushed. ‘I’m sorry. It’s a sort of family catchword of the Carrells—that’s Stella’s—Mrs Melville’s—family. They’ve got an aunt who detests cats, and she’s always saying: “I have a feeling in my bones that there is a cat somewhere about”!’
‘I see. And you had a feeling in your bones that there was something wrong somewhere. Is that it?’
‘Well … not quite,’ said Miranda, moving restlessly in her chair. ‘It’s a little difficult to explain. I just felt a bit scared and on edge and—oh, I can’t describe it. It isn’t a thing you can pin down!’
‘All right,’ said Simon equably, ‘leave it for the moment. Can you tell me instead if there was any particular moment at which you began to feel—um—Aunt Hettyish?’
Miranda considered the question. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said at last. ‘I felt in terrific form when I went off to meet Stella and Robert at Liverpool Street station. We had tea at the Station Hotel and it was quite a party. It was only later on that there seemed to be a sort of queer feeling about things.’
‘When you arrived at the Hook? Or while you were still in England?’
Miranda wrinkled her brows: ‘In England, I think. I’m not quite sure. Why? Is it important?’
‘Perhaps it isn’t. It merely struck me as an interesting point that, according to your own story, you should have felt scared and uneasy before you had any reason to be so, and that possibly you may have seen or noticed something—perhaps without knowing it—that would account for it. Was there anything at all, at any time, that struck you as unusual?’
‘No,’ said Miranda flatly. She had no intention of telling him of those two looks, so utterly different from each
other, that she had surprised on the faces of Sally Page and Mrs Leslie on the previous evening. ‘I expect it’s only Germany. Coming back here, I mean. You see I used to live in Germany when I was a child. My father had a job here, and when the war came we moved over into Belgium. Then Belgium was attacked, and my parents were killed and I got over to England somehow with a batch of refugees. I thought I’d forgotten about it—or very nearly. But coming back here seems to have stirred it all up again. And then of course there was that impossible coincidence of the Brigadier’s story.’
‘What story was that?’ Simon Lang’s voice was deceptively casual, but his eyes, which appeared to be able to change colour—or did they reflect colour?—were suddenly bright and intent.
Miranda repeated the story that the Brigadier had told on the previous evening—abridging considerably—and her own connection with it.
Simon Lang did not appear unduly interested. He wanted to know when Miranda had met the Brigadier and if she had ever, at any time, known him or seen him before? He asked a great many questions in that quiet, casual voice, some of which appeared to have little point. How had they been seated at the dinner table? Who had been sitting at the next tables, and would they have been near enough to overhear what was said? At what time had they moved into the hall? What had they done there and who had been standing where? When had they gone back to the station and in what order? What exactly happened when they boarded the train? Had there been much visiting between the various compartments before or after the train started?
Miranda answered his questions to the best of her ability, and when there appeared to be no more, asked one of her own: ‘Why do you want to know all this? Is it—was it one of us?’
Simon Lang did not pretend to misunderstand her.
‘Yes.’ The monosyllable was curt and uncompromising.